From Decadence to Nationalism in the Early Writings of Barrès

Maurice Barrès's integral nationalism was predicated upon a rejection of those values he associated with the Third Republic. The bourgeois faith in progress, positivism, and democracy was symptomatic of moral and social decay. Barrès envisioned replacing this order with a racially closed folk community. But Barrès's politics evolved out of an aesthetic narcissism traceable to his decadent and symbolist poetic preoccupations of the 1880s. This is reflected in his Culte du Moi in the search to resolve Philippe's morbid introspection through political action. Herein lies the bridge to the nationalism of Les Déracinés. Barrès the nationalist was Barrès the æsthete transfigured. (JDF)